Struggling

Everyone, it seems, is struggling at the moment. So many of my friends have health issues and family worries. Others are simply finding the restrictions of lock-down unbearable. For myself, these last months have been extra challenging. I injured my back and endured three weeks of sciatic pain, then my darling daughter-in-law had a cancer scare, then another part of my back became problematic. My MS, not wanting to miss out, joined in too, with the result that I found it very difficult to keep balance and cheerful. Relentless pain wears you down physically and mentally.

Pain isolates us Image: Hailey Kean on Unsplash

Suffering also heightens one’s sense of isolation. This is magnified by the Covid restrictions and lack of normal interactions. So what can we do? We can practise resilience and we can listen. Paradoxically, the cure for our own sense of aloneness in suffering is in acknowledging the pain of others. I love the way that Bram Stoker expresses this:

Though sympathy alone can’t alter facts, it can make them more bearable.’

Bram Stoker

Pity, sympathy, empathy and compassion

All these responses are ones we would do well to cultivate if we hope to alleviate suffering in the world. Yet, they are all subtly different, moving from a passive to an active response. Psychology Today gave an excellent definition of each.

‘Pity: I acknowledge your suffering.

Sympathy: I care about your suffering.

Empathy: I feel your suffering.

Compassion: I want to relieve your suffering.’

Psychology Today

When we express our pain, we are often given the first two in response. This is seldom a great comfort. Pity and sympathy, though not without value, tend to put the giver of that emotion an elevated position to the sufferer. Which explains why, no doubt, ‘I don’t want your pity/sympathy,’ is a well-known response. Though I would rather someone showed they cared than not, expressions of pity always leave me feeling a little uncomfortable, not least because they do not actually offer any help.

Empathy has the advantage of equalising the relationship. ‘I feel your suffering,’ because I have suffered too. We do not need to have experienced the same experience (though it certainly helps if we have) to share that fellow feeling and make the listener feel less alone and less targeted for misfortune by the universe.

A thought provoking bench Image: David Lowe on Unsplash

Compassion, however, is what we can all strive to provide. It literally means to join in suffering and further, to seek to heal. Taking action is key if our words are not to sound hollow. An act of kindness never goes amiss, but such acts are a little harder at the moment. So what can we do? We can listen.

Compassionate listening

The most beautiful and eloquent explanation of what compassionate listening means comes from the Buddhist monk, Thich Nhat Hanh. I’m just going to put a brief clip here, but you might like to watch the whole interview, which is on YouTube.

Thich Nhat Hanh explains what lies at the heart of compassionate listing

Hanh explains that when we listen with the intention of relieving suffering, we can allow others to unburden their hearts and heal. The method is simple in theory, but very difficult in practice.

Just listen – for up to one hour.

Keep advice or comments for another time. Perhaps you can arrange a date to do this afterwards.

Acknowledge your own failings. Try not to be distracted by theirs!

Adopt the correct mindset before you begin. This is not an activity I would advise when you, yourself, feel emotionally unsettled. A moment of prayer or meditation beforehand would certainly help. Hanh suggests we start this way: ‘I have not understood enough of your difficulties and suffering.’ Let me hear them and try to understand.

Baby steps

Few of us will have the grounded sense of self Hanh has, nor the years of self-discipline and meditative practice. Nor, I expect, have we been nominated for the Nobel Peace prize by none other than Martin Luther King. Mere mortals though we are, we can begin to practise compassionate listening both in conversations and I believe equally well in writing.

In doing this, we can support and love each other through these challenging times and beyond. I struggle, you struggle, we all struggle. Yet, we need not struggle alone.

Suffering

This week’s post was inspired by a line from a novel I read recently. The protagonist is in a meditation class and she reports what the teacher says:

She gave us a formula: suffering = pain + resistance.

Jenny Offill, Weather

And that was it. The novel moves on. I read the line once and then again. I looked for some development of the idea, some clarification, but there was nothing. I was left with this line spinning around my head, tapping me on the shoulder at odd moments, nudging me to find a solution.

Days went by and then a week and then more days. I’d like to say that I cracked it, but I’m not sure. What it did do was make me think much more deeply about suffering.

It is rather like when you buy a new car. It seems so unique and exciting in the showroom. You’ve seldom seen such a gorgeous model before and you drive it home full of pride. Then, over the next few days, you notice a few cars exactly the same as yours and eventually you realise they are everywhere. As with suffering. If you can steel yourself to look, it is all around you.

Hiding in plain sight

For the uncomfortable truth is that we all suffer and yet we are loath to talk about it or address it. It is unseemly, impolite. A lovely neighbour of mine who died of cancer of the oesophagus, said to me when I was unwell myself, ‘Always look cheerful and don’t complain or no-one will talk to you.’ I was slightly aghast and reasoned that maybe it was a generational or a man thing. However, I’ve since come to realise that he was right. There is acceptable suffering: the holiday was cancelled; the traffic bad; the weather awful. Then there is the unacceptable kind: I’m in pain; my anxiety is terrible; I’m afraid or simply sad.

Incapacitated by sadness Image: Zygimantas Dukaukas on Unsplash

Feeling uncomfortable?

Apologies if you are uncomfortable, but there is no other way that I can share this. And if you bear with me, I think there are paths we can take that will be beneficial to all of us. We may dream of a world where pain is abolished, but the truth is that suffering is woven into life’s fabric far too closely to be removed. If joy is the warp, pain is the weave.

As if to prove the point, our amazing progress in the developed world may have saved us from the apocalyptic suffering of the developing nations, but it has not made us happier or pain-free. We may be diverted from suffering by drugs and distractions, but it still crouches in the corner awaiting to ambush us when our guard is down.

In fact, I believe that our insistence that suffering can be overcome is the very thing that prevents us from finding the solution. For if the mediation teacher is correct and suffering = pain + resistance, we need to change the formula.

A new formula

In this equation, we need to substitute two elements: suffering and resistance. Pain, I’m sure you agree, is a constant. From the little reading I’ve done in Western Buddhism, I know that resistance is to be avoided, so I’m going to substitute resistance with acceptance. What then would that equate to? What is the opposite of suffering? I would argue: peace – being at peace within ourselves and our bodies no matter how imperfect they are. So our new formula reads:

Peace = pain + acceptance

Peace be with you Image: Sunyu on Unsplash

First steps

Perhaps the first and most important step is acknowledging suffering in ourselves and others. Denial or wishing to fix it represents our discomfort with an unpleasant reality. It takes courage to look distress in the eye without flinching.

Yet, if we can do this, a kind of healing takes place. Through listening to another’s pain, we are acknowledging it; giving it serious attention. In doing so, we accept the situation and help the sufferer to accept it also. It is the greatest kindness we can give. After all, any true improvement needs to come from the one who suffers themselves. That may indeed involve intervention from other experts – but they must book the appointment.

Compassion

Compassion literally means to suffer together. When we show compassion then, we do not look down or pity the victim, but we hold them as equals. It is a difficult thing to do, not least because there is an obvious imbalance between the giver and receiver. We also have to let go of the egotistical desire to be praised for doing a good deed. We have to draw upon the knowledge of our own suffering to meet that of our friend. We can then stand by them with full understanding and love. And with that acceptance, comes peace.

Come under my umbrella and we can both keep dry Image: JW on Unsplash